


What friends are for...

by IsharaYar



Category: Mass Effect
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friendship, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-10
Updated: 2015-10-10
Packaged: 2018-04-25 17:12:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4969438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/IsharaYar/pseuds/IsharaYar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>With the collectors taken care of, Shepard must do what is right and hand herself in to the alliance.</p><p>Her crew wants one last celebration before their Commander leaves and they may just have a little surprise waiting.</p><p> </p><p>( Just a little drabble set between ME2 and 3. Slightly AU. )</p>
            </blockquote>





	What friends are for...

Keli Shepard glanced around at those gathered with slightly squinted eyes. The lighting, more than likely Kasumi’s influence, was the reason for her squinting as a strobe of colours flashed across the mess hall. Truthfully, she was in awe. They were such a mismatched group that she never once expected it to _work_ and yet it had. Her only regret was having to leave them all and turn herself into the alliance. That wasn’t optional and she knew it. For the moment, they wanted to celebrate one last time before she left and she would give them that. The galaxy owed them that for stopping the collectors.

Jack and Kasumi were both standing, well more like laying, on one of the tables dancing and more than a little drunk. Neither of them actually seemed to be able to hold a dance step any more, they seemed to spend more time laying on the table and moving, almost in time with the music, than actually dancing.

Wrex, Garrus and Legion were off to one side conversing, every so often she caught a small piece of the conversation. Legion was actually encouraging them to drink _more_ because he was intrigued by the effects of alcohol on organics.  Just watching the antics between them as Wrex flailed his arms was enough to make her smile.

The rest of them were all gathered around another table, Shepard and Thane were probably the least drunk of them all. Mostly because she didn’t want to face earth alliance the next day with a hangover. Watching them all getting along was reward enough, even Jack and Miranda had managed to remain civil to each other throughout the night.

“Alright then, here is one for you Shepard. Favourite place to be?” Miranda asked.

Shepard smiled as she ran her fingers through her short dark hair, “I grew up in space. Give me a ship under my feet and a view of the stars. Planets feel all wrong, like they don’t move right.”

“If you were stranded on a planet, what’s the one item you couldn’t live without?” Asked Jacob.

“Gun,” Shepard, Miranda and Thane all answered simultaneously, followed by a series of giggles erupting around the table.

“I have a question for Shepard,” Thane added as he turned his eyes in her direction.

She couldn’t withhold the surprise that she knew must have registered in her features. Normally during gatherings like this Thane made a point of staying out of it. He had certainly never participated in the questions they all liked to throw around, for a moment it made her wonder what he was up to as she studied his face, “Alright Thane, hit me with it.”

“If you could have one thing in the universe, anything at all. What would it be?” He asked and she thought, just for a moment, that he held a knowing look. As if he knew what her answer would be.

Shepard glanced down at the drink that was resting between her fingers. She knew but, it wasn’t as easy to say. It was even painful to _think_ about it, let alone voice it out loud. “Kaidan,” she responded quietly.

“What was that? I couldn’t hear it over Jack and Kasumi.” Thane prodded again and there it was again, just a brief flicker across his features. Over the course of time she had grown closer to him, they had spent many hours just talking and she had confided in Thane about Kaidan and their relationship.

At one point she had even begun to wonder if maybe, Thane saw her as more than a friend but, he had never said as much and she never asked. Now as she looked at him, she was certain he was up to something. “I said Kaidan,” her voice was a lot louder this time. In fact it was loud enough to be heard over everything and everyone else in the room. Loud enough that it all went eerily quiet in that moment. They all stopped talking at once, Jack or Kasumi had turned the music off and all were looking at her. Right afterwards, their eyes all traveled to behind her.

Shepard tensed, there was no way. It just wasn’t possible, they left the Citadel days ago. She would have known. However, she could see it in each of their faces and she was too scared to turn in case it wasn’t true. If it was true and they hadn’t told her she was going to kill them, all of them.

As she sat there in silence, she became aware of a familiar sensation. The low humming of biotics from behind her and then, body warmth near her neck followed by a light tickling of breath against her earlobe, “Even after he was such an ass in Horizon?” A very familiar voice asked quietly next to her ear.

As she took in a deep breath she closed her eyes for a moment, reveling in the sensation of his breath against her neck, the warmth of his body behind her chair and the familiar sparks of power of igniting between their biotics as they intermingled. “Kaidan..” she whispered as she opened her eyes and leapt to her feet.

Shepard tucked her arms under his as they held each other closely, in that moment she didn’t care what had happened on Horizon or anywhere else. He was there, she could touch him, feel his warmth and smell the familiar scent of his aftershave. She tilted her head upwards to look into his eyes.

Kaidan pressed his forehead against hers, “Can you forgive me?” He asked softly.

Tears stung the back of her eyelids at the same time as a smile tugged at the corner of her lips. She pressed them against his in response to the question, everything else in the room melted away as his tongue slipped between her teeth. As he deepened the kiss she closed her eyes and allowed the tears to slip down her cheeks.

She didn’t know how it was that he came to be on the ship and in her arms but, she suspected the friends behind her may have had something to do with it. Maybe she wouldn’t kill them after all.


End file.
